I let out a childish squeak and turn my head round to look at him, meet his grinning face, and I’m reminded of how close we are, of how strange this is.
‘Well done.’ He swallows back his smile and then moves away, grabbing one of the plates of food as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened.
‘Now do the other one.’ He points to the pile of stones.
I roll my eyes but do as he says. It’s easier now I know the trick, know how it feels, and the final stone is balanced quickly and without fuss.
‘You’re a quick learner.’ You’d think he had just called me Michelangelo because I am almost giddy with pride.
‘Good teacher,’ I add and take the remaining plate, taking a seat on the ground next to him and looking at my handiwork. ‘So do you like have athingfor rocks or something?’ I ask, my lip curling up at the edge. ‘I mean all the sculpting and cairn building – sounds like you can’t get enough of them.’
‘Very funny,’ he says with a mouthful of food. ‘I guess I like how they can’t talk back.’
I elbow him in the ribs. ‘Rude.’
‘Have you… enjoyed yourself?’ he asks, and I look back at the crowd for the now-familiar shapes of Luc and Angelina.
‘It was interesting for sure.’ Florian looks at me with one eyebrow raised. ‘My group was just a bit awkward… I used to be friends with Luc and Angelina, that’s all.’
Florian rips off a piece of bread and moulds the soft part into a dense little ball between his fingers. ‘I know.’
‘Oh…’
‘They used to ask about you when I moved here. They’re regulars at the café now.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘The truth.’ He shrugs. ‘Told them that I didn’t have any idea where you were and that we didn’t keep in touch.’
‘And did you put me in a group with them on purpose?’
‘No.’ He shakes his head quickly and I believe him. I don’t think Florian had it in him to orchestrate some sort of meet-cute with estranged friends, no matter how bad our relationship had been.
We spoon another load of food into our mouths. ‘You say youused to,’he says.
‘Sorry?’
‘You said theyused tobe your friends.’
I shrug. ‘Angelina’s angry that I left without telling them.’
Florian nods slowly paying extra attention to his salad, picking out individual slices of tomato on his fork. ‘Do you think her anger is justified?’
I look at him, at the way the humour has clearly evaporated from his face and been replaced by an awkwardness that doesn’t suit him. ‘Do you?’ My voice is colder than I intended it to be.
Florian weighs up my question. ‘I don’t know. You said they were your friends. Wouldn’t you want to know where they went if it was the other way around?’
‘So you hate me too? For not telling you where I was?’ A pause. A pause that’s too long to be explained away. ‘Great,’ I smirk, put my plate of food on the wall.
‘I don’thateyou, Ava,’ he manages to splutter out quickly. ‘I get why you did it but itwasstrange. I wanted to see you too, to talk to you, and you just disappeared.’
‘I had to, Florian. What was I going to do, stay here?’
‘Why is that such a strange thing to do? You lived here for seven years! I know that Ettie was the reason you stayed here in the first place but you’re telling me that you had nothing else to stay for, that you didn’t make any friends that were worth keeping in touch with?’
The reality of his statement hits hard. How I had realised about five years into my relationship with Ettie that I had become a very different person to who I thought I would be, how I had replaced friends and parties and uni societies for him. I play with my wedding band, spinning it around and around my finger until I feel it tighten. I clench my knees to my chest, rest my head there for a few breaths and then look back at the cairn, focusing on how precariously it’s balanced. ‘You know, the last night Ettie and I spent together was so fucking unremarkable.’ I sniff back a heavy chuckle. ‘We closed down the café like normal and then sat on the balcony drinking a bottle of wine with dinner. It was a shit last meal but he didn’t complain and it was sunny so it kind of made up for it. Then we fucked and went to sleep.’ Florian’s face is screwed up in complete confusion as to why I’m divulging this now, his whole body taut and angular. ‘And then he died.’ I feel the tears stinging the back of my throat. ‘He just died. I don’t even know when it happened – what time I mean – how long I was lying next to his body, and when I woke up he was fucking gone and so was my life here and everything I knew and I trusted about the world.’
‘Ava…’ Florian puts his plate on the ground, turns his body towards me. He is probably questioning when on earth this conversation went from jokes about him fancying masonry to this.
